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Dork Diaries series
Dork Diaries is a humorous children's book series written and illustrated by Rachel Renée Russell. Plot The books follow the misadventures of Nikki J. Maxwell, a slightly bratty and shallow but still well-meaning and likable fourteen-year-old girl. The story begins when Nikki's family moves because of her father's job, and Nikki is transferred to Westchester Country Day, a private school that is much too fancy for Nikki's tastes. There, she meets Mackenzie Hollister (the mean popular girl), Chloe Garcia and Zoey Franklin (unpopular but awesome new friends), and Brandon Roberts (Nikki's crush, Mackenzie's crush, and overall nice guy). Why The Books Suck #The main character, Nikki, is a selfish jerk who doesn't even try to put herself in other people's shoes. She also has an unhealthy obsession with writing bad things about people she doesn't like in her diary. Whenever a new problem emerges, she complains about it in her diary. She has never learned in even one of the books that writing in her diary won't solve all of her problems. #The books often follow the same plot line: Nikki fights with Mackenzie, gets mad at her sister Brianna because she's not as "perfect" as her, and obsesses over her crush, Brandon. #Most of the characters reinforce quite a few cliched stereotypes, such as: the hysterical, moody, insecure preteen female main character, the jocks, the mean, popular blond girls, the irritating little sister, the embarrassing parents, the dorky good friends, and the one honest guy. #The series provides very unrealistic expectations for kids and teenagers. In the books, the main characters are often disrespectful to their parents, realize that school doesn't matter, or think that they're better than everyone else and be people whom they're not. #The dialogue often overuses certain words or phrases, such as "OMG", "dork", and "SQUEE!". #The first few books are filled to the brim with references to products, celebrities, fashion designers, and TV shows. #On the Dork Diaries website's blog posts, the comment sections are filled with girls who complain about certain things (ex: Their parents not allowing them to do certain things, not getting what they wanted for Christmas, having a crush on someone who's not into them, wanting to be popular, etc.) #The slogan of Dork Diaries is "Let your inner dork shine", which probably means you should accept yourself for who you are and not let anyone change you. However, this message seems to fall flat. Because of the way Nikki acts throughout the books, the series is actually telling girls to be whiny, spoiled, selfish brats. #If Nikki's character isn't bad enough, Mackenzie could be even worse. She is a girl who claims to be a CCP (Cute, Cool and Popular) socialite, but she goes out her way making everything and everyone miserable. She bullies Nikki all the time, especially ever since she was a new student at Westchester Country Day School, and she didn't even get to know her first. As the books progressed, she's become a lot more cruel and does more bad things to make Nikki miserable. She hits Nikki with a dodgeball, makes her faint, gets detention and then she accuses Nikki of putting a bug in her hair, making a video of it and she steals her diary. Then she convinces her parents to move her to a different school, and cyberbullies herself online. #Nikki and her two friends, Chloe and Zoey, are very tacky characters who only care about what they look like or how popular they are. All they ever think about is being better than anyone else or being someone they're not. We never see them play sports, try out for clubs, or do anything along the tomboy lines (except for Zoey, that is). All the problems they have either revolve around being "single" or really shallow and stereotypical "girly girl" problems, like not having nice enough clothes and dealing with mean girls like Mackenzie. #Brandon, the boy whom Nikki obsesses with throughout the entire series, is a huge waste of her time. Even though he's cute and nice, he's actually a one-dimensional person who doesn't have much personality. He never listens to anyone, he assumes that he knows everything and he's always making people guilty. The way Nikki obsesses over him is very weird, and it gets kind of annoying as the series goes on. #The books hardly ever get mentioned on other websites. #The books often try too hard to be funny. #Most of the books have lots of cliched similes and metaphors thrown about. #One of the more recent books was trying too hard to remain "hip" and "trendy" by adding a reference to the Fortnite Dance Challenge videos (it also had an illustration of some characters dabbing). Redeeming Qualities #Despite being a side character with not much personality, Brandon could probably be considered one of the more well-rounded characters because he is true to himself, doesn't follow the crowd, and is kind, helpful, and thoughtful. #Chloe and Zoey are very supportive of Nikki. They're also cautious when they see her behaving differently, and protective when things get dicey. #The brand mentions and focus on consumerism have been toned down greatly in some of the more recent books, and they now make up and/or use their own brands for scene-setting. Trivia Category:Series Category:Books Category:Childrens books Category:Comedy Books